Thracians

The Balkan mountains, seen from Kazanlak
In the north the Danube, in the east the Black Sea, in the south the Aegean Sea, in the west the Mlava (ancient Margus). Essentially modern Bulgaria. Divided into a northern and a southern half by the Balkans (ancient Haemus).

In the first millennium BCE four major groups of tribes: the Bessae in the southwest; the Triballians in the northwest; the Getae in the northeast; the Odryssae on the southeast in the valley of the Maritsa (ancient Hebros)

In the center the "Valley of the Thracian Kings" (funeral mounds like Kazanlak and Golyamata Kosmatka)

According to the Greek historian Herodotus, they were the world’s largest nation after the Indians, and would be invincible if they would have one king. He devoted a part of his fifth book to the Thracians.

Prehistory

Thracian funeral mound (Golyamata Kosmatka)
2400-1600 BCE: Ethnogenesis; at about the same time as the Greeks entered Greece

There are Thracian cavalrymen in Alexander's army; they are mentioned in the accounts of the battle of Gaugamela. One of them is mentioned as co-ruler of Taxila.

Rogozen Treasure, jar with lion and bull

Rogozen Treasure, vase with amazons

Rogozen Treasure, plate with Heracles

Rogozen Treasure, vase

Svetitsa, Gold funeral mask

Yujna Mogila, rhyton

Pletena, Green helmet

Pegasus

Hellenistic Age

Seuthes III
323 BCE: Death of Alexander in Babylon (text); settlement of Babylon (text); Lysimachus made satrap of Thrace, where Macedonian overlordship is no longer recognized; Lysimachus cannot overcome the Odryssan king Seuthes III; beginning of a long series of wars